Professionals pick holes in Ogun’s urban renewal efforts

August 26, 2013 : Agency Reporter

Though the effort of the Ogun State Government to provide modern infrastructure is commendable, professionals like archaeologists, sociologists, historians and photographers are not happy with their exclusion from the conception and execution of the infrastructural renewal programme.

The state chapter of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria in a 12-point communiqué signed by its Chairman and Organising Secretary, Mr. Bimbo Alagbe and Mr. Adewale Olufemi, at the end of a forum that held in Abeokuta on Tuesday, also rued the loss of revenue by the government on the account of the dislocation of businesses of residents on account of the urban renewal projects.

The communiqué recommended that professional bodies and the residents should support the urban renewal programmes and offer professional advice to the government on how best to achieve the objectives.

“The government should partner with or involve the relevant professional bodies in its urban renewal programme and other policies and programmes right from their conceptualisation stage; the government should ensure that proper and adequate planning and designs are done by experienced and independent consultants before constructions are carried out to avoid project failures, incessant adjustments, distortions to project designs and additional costs,” the communiqué stated.

The APBN advised the government to reassess the status of buildings partly demolished due to road expansion in order to ascertain their safety conditions and prevent avoidable disasters, just as it advised the government to use the opportunity of the relocation of water pipes to replace old ones.

According to the body, historical monuments, artefacts and landmarks like the RIYE statue at the Ibara roundabout should be respected and replaced as a sign of respect for history.

The professionals also advised the state government to extend the infrastructural upgrade to the hinterland to check rural-urban drift and reduce the pressure on the cities, while temporary shops should be provided for the traders whose businesses have been dislocated as a result of the urban renewal projects.

At the roundtable, with the theme: ‘Government’s urban renewal programme: The gains, the lessons and the challenges,’ the Commissioner for Physical Planning, Mr. Adebayo Fari, canvassed the support of the professionals for the efforts to re-build the state, adding that the infrastructural expansion initiative was meant to give a new lease of life to the people.

Spokesperson for the Senate Unity Forum, Senator Kabir Marafa, saying his colleagues passed a vote of confidence in Dr. Bukola Saraki’s senate leadership in order to spite President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress leadership.